The Nationalist government, Nationalist regime and Nationalist China, officially the National Government of the Republic of China, refer to the government of the Republic of China from 1 July 1925 to 7 December 1949, led by the nationalist Kuomintang (KMT) under Chiang Kai-shek.
Following the outbreak of the Xinhai Revolution, revolutionary leader Sun Yat-sen was elected to be China's provisional president and founded the Provisional Government of the Republic of China. To preserve national unity, Sun ceded the presidency to military strongman Yuan Shikai, who established the Beiyang government. After a failed attempt to install himself as Emperor of China, Yuan died in 1916, leaving a power vacuum which resulted in China being divided into several warlord fiefs and rival governments. They were nominally reunified in 1928 under the Nanjing-based government led by Chiang Kai-shek, which after the Northern Expedition initially governed the country as a one-party state under the Kuomintang, and was subsequently given international recognition as the legitimate representative of China, with Chiang as a de facto leader of the country under a military dictatorship. The Nationalist government would then experience many further challenges such as the Second Sino-Japanese War, and the Chinese Civil War. The government was in place until it was replaced by the current Government of the Republic of China in the newly promulgated Constitution of the Republic of China of 1947; though this government retreated to Taiwan near the end of 1949.